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Red tomato slices are a staple to the veggie sandwich Winona Gillman orders from Subway.
But Gillman's veggie sandwich was without tomatoes Monday, as were millions of other Subway customers'. Subway and a host of other restaurants pulled tomatoes from their menus and threw out whatever stock they had as health officials tried to pinpoint the source of a salmonella outbreak.
Indiana has seven confirmed cases from the outbreak, according to the Indiana State Health Department. A sign posted at the Subway at Jefferson Boulevard and Clinton Street alerted customers that tomatoes would not be served based on a warning from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“I wouldn't be the one who got the bad tomatoes,” said Gillman, a 49-year-old homemaker.
The Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department received an advisory from the state health department Monday afternoon, and officials were calling local grocery stores and restaurants recommending they discard their tomatoes and not serve them to customers, said Dawn McDevitt, director of food and consumer protection.
Federal health officials announced Saturday that salmonella food poisoning first linked to uncooked tomatoes has spread to 16 states, including Indiana.
An additional 50 people have been sickened by the same salmonella “Saintpaul” infection in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Investigators are trying to determine whether raw tomatoes also are responsible for the illnesses in those states, said Arleen Porcell, a CDC spokeswoman.
“Our food establishments, once they get this information, they would want to come in compliance with it,” McDevitt said.
Some already were. The Wendy's restaurant at Jefferson Boulevard and Clinton Street stopped serving tomatoes Saturday at the direction of the corporate office, according to a Larry, a manager who declined to provide his last name.
A case of tomatoes delivered to the Dash-In cafe on Calhoun Street was thrown into the garbage Monday, said Katy Kunkel, manager. Dash-In will use tomatoes it had before the recall, but those won't last long, she said.
“We probably won't have any Tuesday. We'll be out from then until God knows when,” Kunkel said. “Almost every single item we have has tomatoes in it.”
The source of the tomatoes responsible for the illnesses has not been pinpointed, but health officials in Texas and New Mexico said none of them was grown in those two states.
Club Soda will replace its sliced tomatoes with cherry tomatoes, which are not part of the warning. A call to Gordon's Food Service, the distributor Club Soda receives its tomatoes from, resulted in Jesse Arnold, executive chef, throwing all of the kitchen's round tomatoes in the garbage. Gordon's had pulled those from its inventory, so Club Soda did the same, Arnold said.
A tomato won't be found at any of the 12 Hall's restaurants in Allen County. Owner and purchasing manager, Jeff Hall, heard of the warning Monday morning and heeded it.
“We're not pushing any more out of here,” Hall said. “You won't see any entrées disappear, but you probably won't find one on your hamburger.”
McDonald's Corp., the world's largest hamburger chain, stopped serving sliced tomatoes on its sandwiches as a precaution until the source of the salmonella is known, according to a statement Monday from spokeswoman Danya Proud.
Fast-food chains Taco Bell Corp. and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. also have halted serving tomatoes, the Los Angeles Times reported.
McDonald's will continue serving grape tomatoes in its salads because no problems have been linked to that variety, Proud said.
Cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and homegrown tomatoes are likely not the source of the outbreak, said Deborah Busemeyer, New Mexico Department of Health communications director.
Also not associated with the outbreak are raw Roma, red plum and round red tomatoes from Arkansas, California, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, the Netherlands and Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Association.
ksoderlund@jg.net
